


Christmas Memory

by JosieRuby1



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Christmas, Memory Loss, jackie's memory, mother/daughter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 06:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13229589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/JosieRuby1
Summary: It's Christmas in the Fierro household and there's something about the tree Jackie remembers.





	Christmas Memory

Lucinda tried not to look disappointed at the distant look in her daughter’s eyes. She told herself she was accustomed to it but could any mother ever become accustom to their only child not remembering them? Not remembering a single happy memory they had shared? Lucinda did not curse Troy, she did not blame him. The lack of working time for him that had infected Jackie was no his fault, it was not something he could control. But sometimes she wondered, if Jackie had had a second parent would things have worked out differently? If Lucinda had had a partner to support her through this would it be easier? Perhaps but the truth was she couldn’t imagine Troy as her partner now, she could hardly imagine it back as it once had been. Troy was someone helpful in passing but not someone you could rely on to be there day in day out and Lucinda was fine alone. She was fine.

That didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt. It hurt to the core, to her heart or wherever it was this level of emotional pain was stored deep within the meat skin we call a body. It hurt to see her daughter, 25 now, and still a little girl in Lucinda’s eyes, staring at the Christmas tree as though it was a new sight to her. The look in Jackie’s eyes was one of blankness, a lack of understanding. Lucinda was the sentimental kind, she was not the cheep baubles rebought each year kind. She was someone who kept decorations Jackie had made as a child, she was someone who had a decoration from every year of Jackie’s life – there were 25, Lucinda had somehow made up for the weirdness of time and how that affected Jackie. Lucinda was someone who still put on the paper-mache Angel on the top of the tree that Jackie had made in elementary school, before all religious images that were not related to the Smiling God (is that a smile?) were banned.

“Aged 7,” Jackie said. Her voice cut through the silence of the room, like a knife through cheese. “Elementary school.”

“What was that dear?” Lucinda asked. She felt her heart rise in hope, knowing that it was going to drop, deflated and disappointed with Jackie’s next reply.

“I was seven when I made that,” Jackie repeated. She didn’t turn to look at Lucinda but she did point to the Angel on top of the tree. “That thing is almost 20 years old, Mom it’s falling apart, why do you still use it?”

“Well dear, you can’t exactly buy Angel figures in Night Vale these days,” Lucinda commented, flippantly but she felt the need to give a more serious answer as well. “And you made it, it is important to me.”

Jackie didn’t move, she didn’t respond, her arm fell and Lucinda thought she heard a sniffle come from her but she didn’t press to find out. “Mr Blaze was my teacher, he hated kids but he hated the headmaster more. The day we made that he put glue and paper and feathers and teeth and, you know, the usual arts and crafts materials, on a centre table and told us to just go wild. He just sat there reading or something and most people ended up with glue and pen and everything all over them.”

There was no mistaking the tears in Jackie’s voice as she continued, they became clear with the small laugh she gave when she added. “A couple of kids ended up getting glued together but I was determined that we were going to have something new on top our tree. This was before the Erikas came to Old Women Josie’s, that was before we weren’t allowed to say what they were. I knew that you loved Christmas and that I loved Christmas because of you so I wanted to make you something special. And I made that. I made that and it’s been almost 20 years of linear time, a lot, a _lot_ longer in whatever weird-ass time I get trapped in but you still have it. You still have it, a gluey mess that is falling apart on top of your tree.”

Lucinda was crying herself, silent tears that only revealed themselves to her as a salty taste in the corner of her mouth. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question that was burning itself on the edge of her mind, the one that was bitter on the tip of her tongue. She could not bare to have this moment broken by a reality that was not the one she was currently experiencing.

Jackie swung around so quickly that Lucinda did not see the movement, only her daughter facing the tree in one moment and facing her in the next. “Mom, I remember that!” Jackie said, grasping Lucinda by the hands with a hugely excited smile on her face. “I remember making that stupid angel-” Jackie sighed as the Angel-Acknowledged siren began to ring within the room and quickly corrected herself, “I mean, I remember making that stupid decoration. I remember wanting to make you smile, I remember wanting to give you something for Christmas because you always got me everything. Mom, I remember.”

Jackie drew Lucinda into her arms and Lucinda reciprocated the hug. It was a desperate action on both sides, both clinging to a moment they did not know if would last, both clinging to a memory they could only hope and pray would remain for Jackie and would not become another painful remembrance for Lucinda.


End file.
